Posts Tagged holo

Normally, when new Android versions are released to the world, Android fans such as ourselves don’t head to the Downloads app to look for any new goodies. However, when the Downloads app is about to undergo a complete graphical redesign, we pay attention. As we continue towards the next batch of Nexus devices and the inevitable Android 4.4. KitKat release, the pace for leaks has quickened. Let’s take a look at what we have this time around.

Pictured above, you can see the side by side differences between the leaked UI and the current Jelly Bean UI.

The action bar also includes two new icons. The icon with the three lines most likely contains sorting options for sorting by file size or by date. The four square dots icon is most likely for changing the view from displaying files line by line, to a cards view, similar to how Google Drive currently looks and functions as shown below.

Do you like the new Holo Light theme with flatter icons that seem to be the theme with Android 4.4? Let us know in the comments.

Anyone that reads on a mobile device, but doesn’t dig Amazon’s Kindle thing is probably using Aldiko. This is a super-popular ebook reader that supports EPUB, PDF, and Adobe DRM ebooks. It also works with titles rented through public libraries. You’re probably going to wish it worked with more services because the new update looks excellent.

Aldiko 3.0 was designed with the Holo guidelines in mind. It’s an almost perfect representation of modern Android design – someone on the development team may have actually channeled Lord Duarte himself.

The full Holo color palette and new settings make the Circuitry Live Wallpaper update feel like an all-new app

One of my favorite live wallpaper applications has received a big update, and it's a veritable HOLOVERLOAD. The Circuitry Live Wallpaper app as an all new design and look, with tons of new settings, and still delivers that same cool electro-geek look of ICs and circuit traces to your phones screen.

It's one of those live wallpapers that can deliver a lot of motion and animation to your home screen without killing your battery or grinding your phone to a halt, and everyone loves those. The difference is, now during the set-up you've got a slew of options and the full HOLO color palette to choose from. I still prefer grey on black, but the new background colors, patterns and shades combined with the 16 HOLO-color component and circuit choices make it look and feel like an all new application.

There's a new product video after the break so you can see exactly what some of these colors look like, and you can grab the app ($1.99, Android 4.0 and higher) or the update at the Google Play link above.

One of the most popular fitness apps on Google Play has long been MyFitnessPal. This was true in spite of how it looked – the app’s UI was absolutely awful, and performance left a lot to be desired. But no more. MyFitnessPal has gotten a new Holo interface in the most recent update.

The developers of MyFitnessPal completely redesigned the app. Performance is considerably better, and you could legitimately call the design Holo (#YOLO). The way tabs behave isn’t quite within the guidelines, but the overall vibe is much closer to the way Android is supposed to look in this day and age.

The team at doubleTwist updated its music player, bringing some Holo design changes and some tweaks to functionality. The interface changes were relatively minor, adding some alterations to navigation and page layout.

Primary navigation occurs with the Up button and the system action bar is used for switching between pages. Many of the functions used for navigating menus remain the same for settings, playlists, etc.

In addition, the app brings a series of new screens that work in both portrait and landscape, with some different layout options.

The team paid particular attention to design detail. Everything from colors, layout and typography were “completely redesigned to be Holo-compliant.”

The color scheme mixes dark elements and a clean layout into its interface, with highlights to text elements.

The design team at doubleTwist has been creating Android apps for some time and thanks to Google’s consistency in design (finally) with Holo, the team is introducing the newly redesigned, doubleTwist Player. For some time, doubleTwist stands out from the pack of other 3rd party music players for its ability to sync iTunes playlists, legally download album [...]
doubleTwist Begins Holo…

It looks like the folks at doubleTwist are hard at work on a new version of their music playback/syncing app for Android, but we’re not supposed to know that yet. Someone seems to have jumped the gun a little bit and posted the news on the doubleTwist blog. The post was locked down almost immediately, but not before we spotted it. The news? As the post says, the future is Holo(graphic).

This is less a complete redesign of doubleTwist than it is a realignment. The current UI was just rolled out late in 2012, and the updated version will essentially be flattening the interface, changing up the colors, tweaking fonts, and finally fixing the menu/action bar situation.

It looks like the folks at doubleTwist are hard at work on a new version of their music playback/syncing app for Android, but we’re not supposed to know that yet. Someone seems to have jumped the gun a little bit and posted the news on the doubleTwist blog. The post was locked down almost immediately, but not before we spotted it. The news? As the post says, the future is Holo(graphic).

This is less a complete redesign of doubleTwist than it is a realignment. The current UI was just rolled out late in 2012, and the updated version will essentially be flattening the interface, changing up the colors, tweaking fonts, and finally fixing the menu/action bar situation.

Talkray, from the makers of the incredibly popular touch-talk app TiKL, is an ambitious app – it looks to be your one-stop shop for mobile communication on the go, communicating through text, pictures, videos, and voice all for free. Until now, though, the app has had a fatal flaw – its design. While not the worst design we’ve seen, Talkray had, shall we say, unfortunate looks. Inconsistent styles, gradients mixed with flat elements, and Gingerbread-style tabs abound.

In its latest update (to version 1.17) though, the app underwent a bit of beautification, bringing it closer to a true holo standard. The redesign isn’t perfect, but it’s undeniably better.

Talkray, from the makers of the incredibly popular touch-talk app TiKL, is an ambitious app – it looks to be your one-stop shop for mobile communication on the go, communicating through text, pictures, videos, and voice all for free. Until now, though, the app has had a fatal flaw – its design. While not the worst design we’ve seen, Talkray had, shall we say, unfortunate looks. Inconsistent styles, gradients mixed with flat elements, and Gingerbread-style tabs abound.

In its latest update (to version 1.17) though, the app underwent a bit of beautification, bringing it closer to a true holo standard. The redesign isn’t perfect, but it’s undeniably better.

It’s about time. While others have been making Twitter look good, the official Twitter app has taken its sweet time doing the same. Well today marks a new day for Twitter for Android as it brings a new version to the Play Store. In this update we see a whole lot of holo and it looks good. Besides the makeover the app comes with the following changes:

- It’s easier to connect with friends and join conversations with @username and #hashtag suggestions that appear as you search or compose a Tweet
- Discover, install and launch your favorite apps from Tweets
- Other bug fixes and improvements

For those of you that still use the official app, this should be exciting news. You can hit the break to get your download links and QR Code. You can also check out Twitter in all its glory. While it took the folks at Twitter plenty of time to get the update out, it looks like it was worth the wait. Enjoy!

It’s about time. While others have been making Twitter look good, the official Twitter app has taken its sweet time doing the same. Well today marks a new day for Twitter for Android as it brings a new version to the Play Store. In this update we see a whole lot of holo and it looks good. Besides the makeover the app comes with the following changes:

- It’s easier to connect with friends and join conversations with @username and #hashtag suggestions that appear as you search or compose a Tweet
- Discover, install and launch your favorite apps from Tweets
- Other bug fixes and improvements

For those of you that still use the official app, this should be exciting news. You can hit the break to get your download links and QR Code. You can also check out Twitter in all its glory. While it took the folks at Twitter plenty of time to get the update out, it looks like it was worth the wait. Enjoy!

It’s about time. While others have been making Twitter look good, the official Twitter app has taken its sweet time doing the same. Well today marks a new day for Twitter for Android as it brings a new version to the Play Store. In this update we see a whole lot of holo and it looks good. Besides the makeover the app comes with the following changes:

- It’s easier to connect with friends and join conversations with @username and #hashtag suggestions that appear as you search or compose a Tweet
- Discover, install and launch your favorite apps from Tweets
- Other bug fixes and improvements

For those of you that still use the official app, this should be exciting news. You can hit the break to get your download links and QR Code. You can also check out Twitter in all its glory. While it took the folks at Twitter plenty of time to get the update out, it looks like it was worth the wait. Enjoy!

It’s been a long time coming, but it seems the developers at Twitter have finally caught onto the craze that’s sweeping the nation: Holo. Sometimes known as HOLOYOLO, Holo is a term used to describe Matias Duarte’s new look for the Android UI that was introduced back in Honeycomb. It’s a more minimal, “flat” UI [...]

It’s been a long time coming, but it seems the developers at Twitter have finally caught onto the craze that’s sweeping the nation: Holo. Sometimes known as HOLOYOLO, Holo is a term used to describe Matias Duarte’s new look for the Android UI that was introduced back in Honeycomb. It’s a more minimal, “flat” UI [...]

It’s been a long time coming, but it seems the developers at Twitter have finally caught onto the craze that’s sweeping the nation: Holo. Sometimes known as HOLOYOLO, Holo is a term used to describe Matias Duarte’s new look for the Android UI that was introduced back in Honeycomb. It’s a more minimal, “flat” UI [...]

It’s no secret that we’re big fans of gReader here at AP, and the latest beta makes us love it even more, as it brings a complete UI overhaul to the application. The dev has redesigned the app to follow the Android Design Guidelines, so it’s all Holo-ed out. And it looks fantastic.

As you can see, the new interface ditches the dark-ish theme to go with Holo light, which look great and feels faster and more fluid. The overall layout of the app hasn’t changed that much, with most buttons remaining in the same place as they were before.

AccuWeather is one of the leading apps for getting more information than you could ever possibly need about the position of the sun, clouds, and the statistical likelihood that precipitation will fall from the sky. It has not, however, been the leader in Holo interfaces among weather apps (the Weather Channel beat it to the punch last week). Today, it catches up, though, with a brand spanking new UI.

It’s not just menu bars and Roboto that are being added for this interface overhaul. The company has also improved the widgets, allowing them to be resizable. Which, you know, all widgets should be.

If you’ve given up on the official app of The Weather Channel in lieu of other, better-looking solutions, it may be time to give it another shot. The app has received a major update today that finally modernizes its previously-dated UI, bringing it up spec with the Android design guidelines. You know what that means – it’s Holo, baby!

Not only is the app 4.0+ optimized, but it also brings a new tablet-friendly interface, as well as a killer new feature that will tell you the exact time rain (or other less-than-ideal weather conditions) are going to hit your area. That’s slick.

Whatsapp is one of the best messaging apps online, and it is perhaps the most used app on my smartphone. The reason for its popularity is that it is a cross platform app. In many cases, it has replaced the regular SMS and telecom companies are reportedly losing a lot of money because of whatsapp.

There are several other cross platform messaging apps, and some of them may be even better than whatsapp, but whatsapp has just gone viral and all are using it. Also, your account ID is your phone number, so no more scratching head for selecting a user ID that’s already taken, or remembering that pesky BBM pin.

Whatsapp is a very popular app for Android devices, but despite its popularity, it’s a part of the depressingly huge collection of Android apps that share interface with their iOS counterparts, never aspiring to anything higher. The UI of course needs an upgrade desperately because the current interface has been there for a long time now. For those who have been waiting for folks at whatsapp to release a new version, the wait is over for Android users. WhatsApp has released a beta version of the popular app for Android, and the app has received a Holo-themed redesign, and if you are adventurous, you can grab it now!

The beta version of the app isn’t available on the playstore, and you will have to sideload it manually from WhatsApp website directly. It’s a free download and you can use the app for 1 year without spending a penny, post which you will be asked to pay $0.99 in order to continue using the service.

The new design conforms to the Holo design guidelines which rest of the phone interface also hopefully follows. Whatsapp has faced negative criticism regarding the security issues in the past. Previously, WhatsApp used to send all chats in plaintext, so basically anyone connected to the same Wi-Fi network can easily read the entire conversation you are making, including pictures and videos. The process of pulling the conversation out of air isn’t a tough one because there are apps such as WhatsAppSniffer which does the job very easily. WhatsAppSniffer is basically a packet sniffer which can pull out whatsapp data that belongs to other users on the same network, which isn’t exactly a good thing because there is no privacy and you may as well shout private conversations across the room.

According to whatsapp, the plaintext issue has been solved and the affected apps have been taken down from the Play Store. The exploit was definitely a major one, but what’s interesting is the fact that Whatsapp knew about the flaw much before they released a fix. They knew the flaw for over a year before they decided to carry out some modifications, which clearly shows how careless the developers are when it comes to security of user’s data.

What do you think of whatsapp beta for Android? Did you like it? Let us know using the comment form below.

Despite being one of the most successful software entities on Android, WhatsApp’s been a little late to adopt certain design guidelines preferred by Google’s mobile platform. Thankfully, the renowned messaging application appears to be ready to take on a more elegant UI, with the most recent beta bundling in Mountain View’s praised Holo theme and, as noticed by some Android Police readers, expandable notifications for all. However, folks attracted by the idea of going Holo in WhatsApp will have to snag the goods straight from the source, as the changes have yet to make their way onto Google Play.

Popular cross-platform messenger service WhatsApp is a little behind the times. It’s part of the depressingly huge collection of Android apps that ape their iOS counterparts, never aspiring to anything higher. That appears to be close to an end, as the latest beta release of the Android client has a new user interface, and it conforms to the Holo guidelines that the rest of your phone (hopefully) uses. Google+ user Jose Luis de la Torre took some shots of the updated interface. Observe:

The version in the Google Play Store hasn’t been updated yet, so you’ll have to go off-market to try out the latest release.

Plume for Twitter updated its main app to closely tie into Android's new design guidelines many months ago, but its widget still lacked the new visual holo flare until today. The new widget is the same as far as functionality goes, but has received a drastic facelift. It is now a "holo dark" theme, with buttons and colors that more closely match that of the actual app. You still get a great visual representation of tweets, mentions and messages, as well as direct compose, refresh and search keys.

There are also several other improvements as part of this update. You can now make multiple columns in both the app and widget that specify between accounts — which is a huge deal for multiple account users — and Facebook accounts can now display in the widget as well. There's also now smoother scrolling, resend dialogues when picture uploads fail and fixes with pull-to-refresh.

That's a whole bunch of notable updates that should keep Plume users happy. If you've yet to try out Plume, you can head the Play Store link at the top of this post to check it out.

It must be the season for Android-native makeovers within our apps. RunKeeper has just pushed out a 3.0 update to its exercise tracker that brings the interface in line with Google’s Holo concepts from Android 4.0 and beyond. There’s more to see once acclimated to the look and feel, however. The 3.0 revamp now has a dedicated tab to show all of an athlete’s progress in one area, such as goals and recent history. It also displays both intervals and pacing in mid-activity while making easy to set a reminder for the next run while cooling down. Runners wanting to modernize just need to hit Google Play to give RunKeeper a makeover that could very well improve their health in the process.

RunKeeper 3.0 is now available from the Google Play Store, bringing a complete visual overhaul to the app along with plenty of new features. Most notable is a redesign in line with Google’s Android best practices in mind. The app takes on the Holo theme introduced in Android 4.0 to provide a consistent experience between OS and app.

New features include in-activity splits for better tracking of workout intervals, the ability to schedule future workouts and set reminders, as well as a new “Me” tab for tracking personal progress. The RunKeeper team has also provided “robust” audio cue improvements.

The new design looks great and the features might be just what you need to catch up on those New Year’s resolutions. Come on, quick slacking! We’re less than two months into 2013…

ESPN has just made a pretty substantial update to its ScoreCenter app for Android, bringing in a completely refreshed UI experience. The app now follows most of the general Google design guidelines — aka "holo" — throughout the app, from removing the legacy menu button to using sliding panels and tabbed navigation. This is a big step forward in design for the app, and it really makes a difference in terms of usability and overall aesthetics.

When the big companies like ESPN start getting on board with the latest design guidelines, it's a good sign that people are starting to take notice of the large numbers of devices running Android 4.0 and higher. This is what we like to see. YOu can grab a download of the new and improved ScoreCenter app from the Google Play link at the top of this post.

The photography app space is a crowded one, and increasingly so since Android 4.0 because of the improvements in the stock camera app. Even with Android brining its own panorama — and now Photo Sphere — features, a popular panorama app TeliportMe (aka Panorama app: 360) has stuck around. Today we're seeing the latest iteration of the app — a version 3.0 update — and it brings a complete overhaul of the UI from top to bottom, as well as some new features.

The new update brings a completely "holo" UI, integrating all of Google's design guidelines such as overflow menu buttons and standard navigation paradigms. Version 3.0 also brings a "stitch later" functionality, which lets you capture these full 360-degree panoramas when your battery is low, and do the processing of them later when you have more charge. TeliportMe is also working on building the community aspect of the app, letting you follow users and easily search for pictures by location or keyword. This is one area where the app is working to stand out from the crowd.

We've got several screenshots of the new UI for you to check out after the break. If you're interested in trying out the new version, you can find it at the Google Play Store link at the top of this post.

Welcome back to another edition of our Android Central app picks. We've only got a few more of these before the end of 2012, so we're hoping to make the most of 'em. It's the holiday season, so of course we've brought a couple of seasonal apps here — with a few of our usual great picks thrown in as well. Stick around after the break and see how we did this week.

A few days ago, we were treated to a lovely look at what Tasker, the highly-customizable Android automation app, could look like if it got a nice facelift. Unfortunately, this was done by the Android team and was not representative of any real work being done by the developer. As it turns out, though, the developer behind said application is working on a holo conversion. There are a quite few obstacles to deal with in the meantime:

I started working on a holo conversion about a week ago coincidentally, with half the goal being use of the holo conventions and half replacing under-the-hood deprecated APIs for dialogs etc.

Microsoft has just released a new version of its email app to coincide with its overall email rebranding to Outlook.com from Hotmail.com today. While the app brings a lot of features that Outlook users will like — ActiveSync, Contacts and Calendar sync, multiple account support — it is wrapped up in a very bland and outdated design that reminds us all of Android 2.3. We had high hopes that Microsoft would bring something more striking. Maybe wrapped up in a "holo" UI, or at very least something of the metro "modern UI" style that has won many people over on Windows Phone.

Nevertheless, if you're an Outlook user, you'll probably be getting one of the better experiences out there using this official app right from Microsoft. You can take a look via the Google Play Store link above.